Affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut; and Instituto de Biomedicina, Laboratorio de Bioquímica/Fundación, Jacinto Convit Caracas, Venezuela.

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On May 12, 2014, Jacinto Convit, MD, died in Caracas, Venezuela at the age of 100... Dr. Convit was a major figure in the history of leprosy and parasitology research... During these tough years, Dr. Convit also volunteered as a physician in other leprosy clinics around the country and devoted a great amount of time to study the diverse clinical and epidemiological aspects of leprosy... One of Convit's major achievements was the creation of regional public health dermatology services (PHDSs) throughout the country, which allowed him not only to implement ambulatory treatment of leprosy patients, but also to provide health education and the control of contacts... Dr. Convit was also renowned for pioneering in the field of immunotherapy by developing in the mid-seventies a successful model of immunotherapy for leprosy combining purified leprosy bacilli obtained from the nine-banded armadillo (Figure 2) and the powerful cell-mediated immunity Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine as an adjuvant... He began his teaching career in the Department of Tropical Medicine at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, and later joined as a full-time Professor at the Department of Dermatology of this same University... In 1976 he founded the fellowship training program in Dermatopathology and in 2000 he founded the Masters course in Epidemiology of Endemic Diseases... He also contributed to the creation of the National Institute of Dermatology, and in 1984 founded the Institute of Biomedicine, a state-of-the-art research institution devoted to basic science investigations and public medical service for dermatological and other tropical diseases... His research and mentorship activities are only a partial legacy of his extraordinary accomplishments... His true legacy lies in the role model he set as a husband, father, teacher, friend, and above all as a physician whose life revolved around the care of his patients... With his quiet, modest, and perseverant character, he will never be forgotten... We all feel a great sense of loss now that he is no longer with us... We have lost not only a great scientist, but a mentor and very dear friend.

Figure 1: Dr. Jacinto Convit in his Laboratory at the Institute of Biomedicine in Caracas, Venezuela handling a nine-banded armadillo, the animal model used to obtain large quantities of the uncultivable leprosy bacillus for vaccine development (Image: Jacinto Convit Foundation).

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Dr. Convit's professional career covered a period of over 70 years. It began in 1938 when he received his doctorate of medicine degree from the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas. At that time his home country of Venezuela was a rural, poor, and disease-ridden country in which any person suspected of suffering from Hansen's disease was stigmatized and condemned to isolation. The conditions under which these patients were confined at Leprosaria, together with Convit's extraordinary human sensitivity, played a key role in his lifelong crusade against stigmatization of leprosy patients. At age 23, in the era where no cure was available for this feared disease, Convit (Figure 1) decided to devote his life to developing a cure for these patients and decided to move into one of the largest leprosaria of Venezuela, the Leprosy Clinic of “Cabo Blanco.” His first goal was to end prejudice and exclusion condemning this disease, an objective that he achieved soon after taking over the National Directorate of Leprocomiums, when he convinced the government to free the patients from isolation. His work helped change the leprosy control measures in Venezuela, replacing compulsory isolation with ambulatory treatment.

Figure 1: Dr. Jacinto Convit in his Laboratory at the Institute of Biomedicine in Caracas, Venezuela handling a nine-banded armadillo, the animal model used to obtain large quantities of the uncultivable leprosy bacillus for vaccine development (Image: Jacinto Convit Foundation).

Mentions:
Dr. Convit's professional career covered a period of over 70 years. It began in 1938 when he received his doctorate of medicine degree from the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas. At that time his home country of Venezuela was a rural, poor, and disease-ridden country in which any person suspected of suffering from Hansen's disease was stigmatized and condemned to isolation. The conditions under which these patients were confined at Leprosaria, together with Convit's extraordinary human sensitivity, played a key role in his lifelong crusade against stigmatization of leprosy patients. At age 23, in the era where no cure was available for this feared disease, Convit (Figure 1) decided to devote his life to developing a cure for these patients and decided to move into one of the largest leprosaria of Venezuela, the Leprosy Clinic of “Cabo Blanco.” His first goal was to end prejudice and exclusion condemning this disease, an objective that he achieved soon after taking over the National Directorate of Leprocomiums, when he convinced the government to free the patients from isolation. His work helped change the leprosy control measures in Venezuela, replacing compulsory isolation with ambulatory treatment.

Affiliation:
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut; and Instituto de Biomedicina, Laboratorio de Bioquímica/Fundación, Jacinto Convit Caracas, Venezuela.

AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED EXCERPT

Please rate it.

On May 12, 2014, Jacinto Convit, MD, died in Caracas, Venezuela at the age of 100... Dr. Convit was a major figure in the history of leprosy and parasitology research... During these tough years, Dr. Convit also volunteered as a physician in other leprosy clinics around the country and devoted a great amount of time to study the diverse clinical and epidemiological aspects of leprosy... One of Convit's major achievements was the creation of regional public health dermatology services (PHDSs) throughout the country, which allowed him not only to implement ambulatory treatment of leprosy patients, but also to provide health education and the control of contacts... Dr. Convit was also renowned for pioneering in the field of immunotherapy by developing in the mid-seventies a successful model of immunotherapy for leprosy combining purified leprosy bacilli obtained from the nine-banded armadillo (Figure 2) and the powerful cell-mediated immunity Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine as an adjuvant... He began his teaching career in the Department of Tropical Medicine at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, and later joined as a full-time Professor at the Department of Dermatology of this same University... In 1976 he founded the fellowship training program in Dermatopathology and in 2000 he founded the Masters course in Epidemiology of Endemic Diseases... He also contributed to the creation of the National Institute of Dermatology, and in 1984 founded the Institute of Biomedicine, a state-of-the-art research institution devoted to basic science investigations and public medical service for dermatological and other tropical diseases... His research and mentorship activities are only a partial legacy of his extraordinary accomplishments... His true legacy lies in the role model he set as a husband, father, teacher, friend, and above all as a physician whose life revolved around the care of his patients... With his quiet, modest, and perseverant character, he will never be forgotten... We all feel a great sense of loss now that he is no longer with us... We have lost not only a great scientist, but a mentor and very dear friend.